Obama’s Debt Weakening U.S. Nuke Posture

Now is not the time to discuss removing one leg from the three-legged stool known as the nuclear triad, the head of U.S. Strategic Command said Oct. 18.

“I continue to stand by a need for a triad,” Air Force Gen. C. Robert Kehler, Stratcom commander, told reporters in Washington, D.C.

The prospects for budget cuts have prompted some pundits to question the need to fund all three parts of the nation’s methods of delivering nuclear weapons — land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines armed with sea-launched missiles.

Wouldn’t it be better to do away with one of the three and make the remaining two more robust rather than to trying to sustain all three? Kehler was asked.